PITTSTON, Pa. – The Manhattanville College men;s hockey team began the finale series of the regular season on Friday night with a win, defeating King's College 6-2. With the win, the Valiants imrpvoe to 12-10-2 overall and 11-7-1 in UCHC play.

The victory also brings the Valiants' conference point total up to 34, which brings them back into a tie for the fourth seed and final home rink advantage of the Conference Championship opening round with Chatham following the Cougars' loss to Nazareth tonight. Should both teams remain tied in the standings following tomorrow's action, the Valiants will hold the tiebreaker over the Cougars and would earn the No. 4 seed.

The Valiants scored in each of the three periods, with a four goal second putting the game out of reach. Six different goal scorers lit the lamp on the night for Manhattanville.

It was almost a scoreless opening 20 minutes of play before the Monarchs' Samuel Libetti was called for slashing with 34 seconds left in the period. The Valiants worked quickly with the man advantage, using just 26 seconds of the power play before Nick Prestia (Niagara Falls, Ont./Pickering Panthers (OJHL)) notched the night's opening tally from James Gregory (Darien, Conn./Connecticut Roughriders (EHL)) and Mitchell Watson (Calgary Alberta, Canada/Canmore Eagles (AJHL)) with less than eight seconds to go before the intermission. The score was Prestia's seventh of his senior campaign and his fifth power play goal of the year.

After beating the buzzer in the first, the Valiants continued firing in the second as they scored three times in a span of 1:43. Glynn Robitaille (Northville, Mich./Vermont Lumberjacks (EHL)) opened up the barrage at the two minute mark, scoring his fourth of the year from Mason Emoff (Collingwood, Ont./Vermont Lumberjacks (EHL), Pembroke Lumberkings (CCHL)). Elijah Devereaux (Webster, N.Y./Danbury Jr. Hatricks (NA3HL)) would then strike 41 seconds later off a feed courtesy of Corey Popowcer (Parkland, Fla./Vermont Lumberjacks (EHL)) for his second collegiate goal. Up 3-0, the Valiant attack continued to execute as Hayden Taylor (Bloomfield Hills, Mich./Islanders Hockey Club (NCDC)) got involved in the part 3:43 into the period from Josh Fletcher (Calgary, Alb./Kindersley Klippers (SJHL)) and Prestia. For Taylor, it was his eighth goal of the season.

Following the scoring frenzy, things calmed down a bit before Manhattanville struck again 14:19 into the period. It was Troy Crosson (Hatfield, Pa./New Jersey Rockets (NCDC)) scoring the goal this time around, his sixth of the year, from AJ Bella (Norwalk, Conn./Connecticut Roughriders (EHL)). The Monarchs would ultimately get on the board with a last second goal of their own as Matthew Metsa scored from Libetti and Rob Sheehan with 2.7 seconds left in the period.

Both teams would score once more to bring an end to the night in the third. Erik Borschevsky pulled the home team closer 8:34 into the period from Jackson Grozelle and Brendan Krawczyk before Bella notched the Valiants' second power play goal of the night from Taylor and Fletcher with 2:04 left to play to give Manhattanville the 6-2 win.

Sebastian Woods (Limehouse, Ontario, Canada/Utica Jr. Comets (NCDC)) manned the crease for Manhattanville, making 31 saves in the winning effort. After making 22 stops across the first two periods, he closed out the night with nine saves in the third to pick up his tenth win of the year. Woods holds a .917 save percentage and a 2.95 goals against average with one game remaining in the regular season of his rookie campaign.

The Monarchs held a 36-33 faceoff advantage on the night. Fletcher was the Valiants' top man on the draw on Friday with 11 wins on the dot.

Manhattanville was a very effective 2-for-3 on the power play, logging four shots with the man advantage. The PK unit also had a strong night, killing off both of the King's power plays.

Up Next
The regular season concludes tomorrow with a 2 p.m. opening faceoff.

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